by Shari Low
Two things happened at once. I took another deep breath at exactly the same moment as the waiter reappeared and slid a huge, complete lobster into the middle of the table. The sight, the smell, those two little eyes looking right up at me–I wasn’t sure who was worse off, me or the lobster.
‘Just one thing, anything at all,’ he repeated.
‘I think I need to go home,’ I whispered. ‘Right now.’
Back at my flat, he insisted on walking me up to the door. My foot had barely hit the top step when Mrs Naismith was outside. ‘You okay, love?’ she asked, and it’s probably fair to say that Conn had never been scrutinised quite so intently. It was only when she finally switched her gaze to me that she realised I most definitely wasn’t okay.
‘Conn, this is Mrs Naismith,’ I whispered. ‘Mrs Naismith, Conn.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Conned.’
To his credit, he didn’t correct her.
‘Come on, love, let’s get you inside. You look ghastly, you really do.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Naismith, but honestly, it’s okay,’ I stuttered slowly, words difficult now that my brain seemed to have totally disconnected. ‘I can manage. I’m absolutely fi—’
And that’s when everything went black.
Great Morning TV!
Goldie Gilmartin radiated her usual morning sunshine as she cut to the commercial break.
‘Coming up, we have the couple who have had twenty-three children yet are still trying for more; and our beauty expert Liz Dresden will be demonstrating, live on air, what’s involved in that male beauty treatment known as a back, sack and crack wax. Gents, you might want to close your eyes during that one. And, of course, it’s Friday, so Zara Delta will be here with your forecast for the weekend. Back in three.’
Straight after Goldie’s wink to camera, the director shouted cut, and the studio erupted into that familiar flurry of activity.
‘Where the hell is Zara?’ Goldie yelled.
‘She’s still in make-up–she didn’t like the way they’d done her hair,’ a young terrified girl clutching the requisite TV clipboard replied.
Goldie groaned with fury. ‘That poor man over there…’ she pointed to a male model who was standing just off set with only a towel preserving the dignity that was about to be stripped from him in front of the entire British viewing public, ‘is about to have hairs pulled from his scrotum, and yet he still managed to bloody show up on time!’
‘Thirty seconds,’ someone wearing headphones shouted. There was a commotion at the entrance to the set and Zara strutted in and over to the sofa, the stomp of her flip-flops making it obvious that she wasn’t overflowing with sweetness and joy.
‘Good of you to join us,’ Goldie spat, all pretence of civility gone now.
‘Had to–you need all the help you can get, and it certainly won’t come from Mystic Meg or Russell Grant,’ Zara replied with equal venom.
One glove. Two gloves. Both off. The thirty or so people in the studio looked around frantically, as if they’d be able to spot on sight who had leaked the news of Goldie’s demand that Zara be replaced. The set literally crackled with tension as the two women eyed each other with undisguised hatred.
Five seconds! Three, two, one…’ He pointed at Goldie and then backed away.
‘Welcome back, and look who I’ve got here with me, the gorgeous Zara Delta!’
The camera panned to Zara, her smile beaming, presumably in the hope that if she blinded the audience with her dental brilliance they wouldn’t notice what was going on at the top of her head. The premise had been great: twenty or so sections of her hair curled in individual spirals, each of them secured with a star-shaped diamanté clasp. Unfortunately, it had been a cosmic hairdo too far for the relatively new stylist back-stage, and instead of looking stellar, Zara bore more of a resemblance to a Sputnik.
‘Loving the hair, Zara, loving the hair,’ added Goldie, with just a hint of amusement.
The Sputnik’s smile shrank to a very thin, strained line, but to her credit she recovered quickly, launching straight into her run-down of weekend predictions for each sign of the zodiac.
It was only at the end that the tension resurfaced. As soon as Zara had wound up Aries, Goldie moved in.
‘Great, Zara, thank you, and let’s hope those wild antics that you promised for us Taureans come true.’
‘I’m sure that in your case they will, Goldie,’ Zara replied, her voice all sweetness, her expression one of undisguised fury, ‘just as long as you remember that the key to those antics is to make sure that you socialise in groups. Which I know you like to do, Goldie.’
It was immediately clear who knew about Goldie’s nocturnal activities and who didn’t. Those who were blissfully unaware were smiling along at this bantering interchange between the sofa queens, absolutely oblivious to the bitchy undertones and innuendo. Those who were in on the gossip had the wide-eyed, terrified expressions of doom.
‘Thank you, Zara, and…’
Zara cut her right off. ‘Yes, I know what you’re going to say, Goldie, and indeed we are still looking for lucky candidates to take part in our extensive study of relationships and dating. We’ll be sharing the sensational results in my new dating book It’s in the Stars, and I can promise you it’s going to be sensational!’
Up in the gallery the producer was doing his best to shield the audience from Goldie’s very obvious irritation by shouting ‘Stay with Zara, stay with Zara!’
Zara was face on to camera now, knowing full well that as long as she had the audience engaged and was in full flow, they wouldn’t dare cut away from her.
‘We’re looking for all you fabulous Sagittarians out there, so gents, get in contact now by logging on to www.itsinthestars.net. Oh, and ladies, if you’re single and desperate for love like our Goldie, you can place your order now and be one of the first lucky singles to find your soul mate in the stars. Log on to www.itsinthestars.net for full details.’
At the next commercial break Zara stomped straight out, leaving Goldie to vent her rage to an empty chair. For weeks, the television world would be buzzing with stories about the morning TV slot that was so dramatic, the sight of a grown man having hot wax spread on his testicles wasn’t the most astonishing aspect of the show.
32
The Powers of Uranus
‘Why? Why would she say that we’re still open to applications when she knows that the last date is tomorrow night and that we’ve already picked the candidate?’
I experienced a little flip of nervousness as I finished that sentence. Occasionally, I fretted over what Zara would say if she ever found out that a couple of the dates were a little more manufactured than the others. Technically speaking, I hadn’t done anything wrong: by the end of tomorrow night I would have gone on twelve dates with twelve different men, one from each of the signs of the zodiac. I’d also filed all the correct paperwork, been conscientious in my reports and only skipped bits if they involved genital interaction. And let’s face it, the only reason she made public appeals for candidates was for the publicity. Suddenly I got it: she was still using the appeal to plug the book.
‘She’s lying from the Great Morning TV! sofa! That’s like swearing in church!’ I exclaimed. ‘Trish, are you listening to me?’
‘Ssshhhhh, they’re just about to wax his crack–have some respect!’
Trish was sitting at her desk, feet crossed on top of a pile of paperwork, hands behind her head, every iota of her being focused on the monitor in front of her as she watched the show.
‘Leni!!!!!’ the voice roared from the corridor.
I poked my head out the door to see Zara thundering towards me, obviously not skipping with joy.
‘Yes?’ I enquired sweetly.
‘Make your own way back to the office. I’ve got a meeting in Kensington and I probably won’t make it back to the office afterwards.’
The stories about Stephen Knight’s Viagra consumption must be true, I thought.
‘Leni, just for once, would it be too much to ask that you deal with things on your own?’ With that, she stropped off down the corridor, through the swing doors and out of sight. I just hoped that she did something with that hair before turning up for her hot afternoon of wanton lust, or she might find that her ‘meeting’ failed to rise to the occasion.
I absolutely understood now why her last assistant had bailed out with a boy-band member and never returned. Zara gave this illusion of inner peace and spirituality, she embraced meditation and karmic Zen, she preached love for all living things and espoused the need for the people of the world to act as one, both in this life and in the afterlife (the one to which she had a direct line of communication). But the truth? She’d sell her granny for publicity, a hefty bank balance and an afternoon of jungle sex with anyone with a higher profile than hers.
‘My heart is bleeding for that poor bloke,’ Trish announced as the slot ended and Goldie cut to commercials again.
‘Fabulous,’ I muttered, ‘I contracted a life-threatening virus and you barely showed an interest, yet you come over all sympathetic when a nude male is involved.’
‘Have you seen him?’ she replied. ‘He could rob a bank, steal a pack of puppies and tell me he’d shagged my husband and I’d still feel sorry for him. He’s fucking gorgeous.’
She did have a point. He looked like that Smith bloke from Sex and the City, before he lost all credibility by doing those Aero adverts.
‘Anyway, you were getting quite enough sympathy from a certain employer who took staff perks to a whole new level.’
My grin was irrepressible because she was absolutely right. This was my first day back at work, and I’d only chosen to come back on a Friday because I knew it’d be an easy studio day. From moments after I’d fainted outside my front door, until approximately three hours ago, I’d been lying in my bed, and for a large part of that time I’d been pampered by a certain Conn Delta. Turned out my hangover was actually a horrible virus with flu-like symptoms that was sweeping the country and sending a large portion of the population under the duvet.
Trish had visited me a couple of times, bringing supplies of magazines and Lucozade. Stu had popped in daily. At least, I think it was Stu. It was difficult to tell under the bio-suit, the facemask and the latex gloves. And Mrs Naismith was my resident Florence Nightingale, right up until Wednesday night when she contracted it too and we had her bed pushed into my living room so that we could mutually take care of each other.
The man pushing the bed? Conn. It was amazing how much things could change in just a few days, how well you could get to know someone in such a short space of time. He had been truly amazing, calling in twice a day, never without something to make me smile. There was the Jo Malone body cream (‘Fucking hell, do you know how much that stuff costs? He definitely wants into your knickers’–quote, unquote from Trish), the Belgian chocolates, the baskets of fruit, the beautiful orchids. He even brought Mrs Naismith a thirty-two-movie box set featuring the best action films ever made.
The awkwardness, the nervousness and the tongue-tied clumsiness that had been my standard behaviour patterns in his presence seemed to dissipate after the first day or so, when he’d seen me at my absolute worst and was still breathtakingly sweet and thoughtful.
‘He’s got a thing for you, you know,’ Mrs Naismith would leer the minute he left after each visit. For the first couple of days I was so ill I could barely comprehend what she was saying, but by Wednesday afternoon my powers of sense were returning and I’d occasionally wonder if she had a point, before immediately dismissing the thought as ridiculous. He was the Diet Coke guy! He didn’t do ordinary, he didn’t do mediocre, and he definitely didn’t do average-looking PAs who smelled like a landfill site because they hadn’t showered in three days. It was indisputable that his actions were way above and beyond that of normal employment legislation, but I’d convinced myself that his generosity was just born of a combination of sympathy and inherent niceness. I had absolutely no idea who his dad was, but he must be a sweet guy because Conn certainly didn’t get those qualities from his mother. Sometimes I despaired of my judgement skills. I couldn’t believe I’d even considered for a second that he could be some debauched druggie.
‘How’re you feeling now anyway?’ Trish brought me back to the present.
‘Stop pretending you care,’ I bit back with mock petulance.
‘You’re right, I don’t,’ she shrugged, leaving me to sulk for a few seconds before she leapt out of her chair, leapfrogged her desk and fell on me in a huge hug.
‘Of course I care! I care! Underneath this cold exterior is the reincarnation of Mother Teresa and, as God is my witness, I care.’
‘You need help,’ I told her calmly, trying desperately not to laugh.
‘I know.’ She removed herself from my knee and rearranged her dishevelled stunt clothes. ‘It’s getting up at four a.m. for the last five years–I think it’s challenging my mental health. So, anyway, you never answered my question. How’re you feeling now?’
‘Much better. Still feel a bit giddy sometimes, but apart from that it’s just the really sore head. As long as no one shouts, though, it’s just about bearable.’
The last syllable was barely out of my mouth when the door swung open violently and a livid Goldie Gilmartin was framed in the doorway.
‘TRISH, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULDN’T DO FOR ME?’ she yelled.
Trish grinned, then flicked on her solemn face, clasped her hands in front of her as if in prayer, and performed a deep bow.
‘Of course not, your highness, you know my sole purpose in life is to serve you.’
‘Then put some fucking arsenic in that tart Zara Delta’s fucking Danish next week.’
With that, she slammed the door shut, leaving Trish and me open-mouthed but amused. Zara, Trish, Goldie…what was it with women in TV? They all sounded like Billy fucking Connolly after a profanity course.
‘You know, I might just do that, for your sake as well as Goldie’s,’ Trish mused.
‘How would killing Zara be for my sake?’
‘Just a hunch…I’d hate you to have a mother-in-law that you didn’t like.’
She was being ridiculous. She was. Absurd. Crazy. There was no way Conn would be interested in me. Was I interested in him? Not in that way! Definitely not! But maybe I could. Could I?
Variations on the above ran through my mind all the way back to the office. I made the journey by taxi, the one we had a standard booking for every Friday. Zara would kick herself when she realised that her lowly PA had enjoyed the luxury of a fifty-quid car ride to Notting Hill instead of behaving according to her status and taking the tube. Hey ho. I was still recovering, I’d come back to work even though I still wasn’t a hundred per cent, and I was still bearing a very slight grudge over the whole drug-dealing arrest debacle the week before, so the new militant me decided I deserved it.
‘Hey, you’re back,’ Millie screeched the minute I walked in the door. ‘We missed you so much!’
I gave her a huge hug, careful to breathe in the opposite direction so that I wouldn’t infect her with the remnants of my plague.
‘I missed you too! You’re looking great!’
Today she was veering more towards her Morticia look in a purple velvet Goth jacket that was nipped in at the waist, with a high-standing collar and long sleeves that flared out from the elbow downwards. The skirt was of the same fabric, a calf-length sheath that clung to her silhouette. I hoped there was a split at the back because otherwise she’d be limited to steps of less than two inches.
‘Who’s in?’ I asked her, reluctant to mention Conn’s name in particular.
‘Just Conn.’
Yes!!!! Thankfully, that triumphant exultation was just in my head.
‘Leni, I have an absolutely massive favour to ask,’ Millie blurted. ‘I know Zara’s not coming in today,
so is there any possibility–just say no if you don’t want to–that you would perhaps look after the desk for me this afternoon and let me knock off early? It’s just I’ve got a…thing…I’ve got a thing on tonight and I’d really like to go get all my bits done. Please, please, please, and I’ll owe you anything you want!’
‘A “thing”?’ I asked, eyebrow cocked.
‘New man, long story. I’ll tell you about it on Monday, but if I go now I’ll be on time for the appointment at the salon that I made in the hope that you’d be pal of the year and help me out.’
‘Glad you didn’t resort to emotional blackmail there,’ I laughed. ‘On you go, it’s not a problem, I promise. It’s the least I can do for all the help you gave me with the dates.’
She kissed my cheek, grabbed her bag and teetered out the door. I nipped into her little cubby-hole behind reception and flicked on the kettle. The room was only about four feet by ten, and it housed a couple of filing cabinets, a small photocopier, a few paper trays, a fax machine, and all the accoutrements required in the tea-making process. While the kettle boiled, I nipped back out to reception and used Millie’s computer to log on to my emails. One from Jon, just checking our arrangements for Sunday. Two o’clock at the Farmer’s Arms, a quaint little village pub on the outskirts of Windsor.
My reply was brief. ‘Looking forward to it. Hope you’re having a great day and not getting your NASDAQs in a twist.’
I made a mental note to ask him what a NASDAQ actually was as we lingered over our roast beef and Yorkshire puds.
I’d just pressed ‘SEND’ when Conn popped down the stairs with some mail.
‘Hey, gorgeous, how’re you? You look much better!’
You think? Must be the hour of hair straightening and full but subtle face-paint application that I’d persuaded the make-up girls at Great Morning TV! to provide before I’d left there this morning.
‘Thanks, Conn. And I don’t just mean for the compliment, although that was really nice, but for everything you’ve done this week. It was all very kind of you. Although Mrs Naismith is showing aggressive tendencies after watching nothing but brutal action movies for the last two days.’